Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
English Freedom, Circa 1700
Via Arts & Letters Daily comes this lively Literary Review take by Christopher Hart on Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England, 1600-1770, by Emily Cockayne:
The personal liberty of every freeborn Englishman and woman to spit, dump and defecate meant considerable misery for everyone. In the streets of London you would stumble over ‘the disagreeable Objects of bleeding Heads, Entrails of Beasts, Offals, raw Hides, and the Kennels flowing with Blood and Nastiness'. I never knew that ‘Mount Pleasant', near Gray's Inn, was actually a bitterly ironic name for a huge man-made heap of the most nauseous offal and ordure. It is now, of course, home to the Guardian newspaper....
Our Health and Safety goons may be completely deranged with power, but back then, every potter had ‘sallow, pale skin due to lead poisoning', while painters had withered limbs and blackened teeth, if any. You may feel a certain nostalgia for the sheer street liveliness and ebullience of our past, so far removed from our own sterile and neurotically manicured townscapes, infested with surveillance cameras and ‘community support officers': the open prison that is contemporary England.
Read the whole stinking, and highly entertaining, mess here.
|4.11.07 @ 9:45AM|#
Surely there is a middle ground somewhere between open sewers and the Total Surveillance State?
edna|4.11.07 @ 9:47AM|#
surely there is a middle ground somewhere between links that work and links that don't. you need to find that middle ground.
VM|4.11.07 @ 9:58AM|#
hier
THE BIG BOOK OF BRITISH SMILES!!!!!!!!!
(note: the doodz from the sports bar polled believed that it was a
komnischt plot (cut 'em some slack - they had nearly three bud
lights apiece!) to fluoridate our precious bodily fluids.)
We then had to answer to the coca cola company!
|4.11.07 @ 10:11AM|#
More proof libertarianism is a loony ideology. If you don't want the SWATters kicking down the door of your penny-ante poker night, you plainly want to claim the right to dump your chamber pot on the sidewalk.
|4.11.07 @ 10:16AM|#
RC Dean - Nope. Obviously not. And it's our optimism about not
needing the government to fulfill this function that keeps you and
I drinking unflouridated water that makes our teeth rot in our
heads, not to mention the lead poisoning, food poisoning, and
exposure to life-threatening medicines that have been
"insufficiently tested."
(Sorry, sarcasm is apparently a free service on pre-coffee
mornings... Available for a limited time only!)
uncle sam|4.11.07 @ 11:03AM|#
Sensibilities have evolved.
Humans have learned the benefits of modern sewerage handling.
That's why people in even remote areas install systems for handling
waste rather than hauling it out back.
It's not necessary to enforce what people prefer.
|4.11.07 @ 11:11AM|#
Not at all. I want to claim the right to send my buxom, indentured Irish chambermaid out in the middle of the night to dump my chamber pot in your street.
|4.11.07 @ 11:14AM|#
Don't you have to have a sewer system for your city to grow beyond 12 citizens?
|4.11.07 @ 11:17AM|#
Could we have a correlation-causation problem here? The growth of state power directly correlates with the removal of crap from the streets. Must we therefore embrace the nanny because she has taken care of the offal? Or have we just decided we don't like offal? I think the Londoners' naming the place Mt Pleasant in a fit of irony might indicate that they saw a problem.
|4.11.07 @ 11:20AM|#
I've always been amused by people who romanticise the
past.
Even Roman cities, with their sewer systems and aqueducts, stank of
dung and offal. Dying of old age was rare, even in the upper
classes. Typhoid & pneumonia were death sentences.
The countryside was marginally better health-wise, but farm life
had its own hazards, like dying from an infected cut from a
scythe.
I may detest over-regulation, but the improvements in health care
more than makes up for it.
|4.11.07 @ 11:36AM|#
Aresen,
Spot on. I've often questioned what was so great about the damn
Roman Empire. Nice buildings, for the super-rich? Public water via
the aqueducts which carried disease? Bathing in contaminated water
with 1000 other people? So the barbarians had fleas.
Whatever.
More on point: just before my grandmother, who was born in 1903,
died, she told me about the "good old days" She almost spit at me
for daring to suggest anything, and I mean anything, might have
been better. "I've got a titanium & plastic knee that works
better than the crap one it replaced," she said, "screw the good
old days!"
|4.11.07 @ 11:44AM|#
But, Aresen, I must return to my point. Have we overcome the vileness of the past because of public health nannies, or just coincidentally with the rise of them?
Rhywun|4.11.07 @ 12:06PM|#
I've always been amused by people who romanticise the
past.
Few people romanticize any past era lock, stock and barrel. Lots of
people, however, romanticize certain aspects of the past
in an attempt to highlight current deficiencies. There's nothing
odd about that.
|4.11.07 @ 12:16PM|#
Rhywun
A fair point. Perhaps the nastiness of the past is worthy of
contempt, yet the freedom of the past is worthy of mourning?
Again, do we have a correlation-causation problem?
|4.11.07 @ 12:16PM|#
Albionite
I honestly don't see how something like the sewer systems in modern
cities could have arisen except as a public works project.
I may be able to sue my neighbor if his effluent overflows into my
yard (or the stench of it makes my house uninhabitable), but it is
not practical to have to run to the courts for every person who
will not take appropriate measures to dispose of his waste.
The problem is to balance what is a necessary health measure with
an individual's right to live as he pleases. What was acceptable in
the city 100 years ago - the smell of the stable where you kept
your horse - is considered an offense against civility - not to
mention the law - today. What will 22nd century polite society
think of the exhaust from my car?
Redress through the courts is the traditional libertarian response,
but is it feasible?
|4.11.07 @ 12:57PM|#
Aresen
I have to admit that I agree with you that case-by-case redress
through courts is not ideal. Nor do I see how modern sewers could
have arisen without state sanction.
But I have often viewed regulation as a societal "shortcut." As we
evolved, we decided that certain things were impermissable, and
rather than attempting to control them case-by-case, we created a
legal structure to ban them altogether. Nonetheless, such laws as
"murder is illegal," "stealing is illegal," "rape is illegal,"
never would have come about in the first place had we not agreed
that such things were bad for all. These things came to be illegal
not because we created a state, but because we became disgusted by
them.
I think the state, per se, is just a way to impose what a majority
have already decided to be good, without having to resort to
litigation. I am not sure whether, in the absence of the state's
power, we would have created sewers. I think we might have anyway,
because we were all sickened by shit in our streets.
Am I making any sense?
SugarFree|4.11.07 @ 1:13PM|#
I took a "Philosophy of Human Nature" course once and the professor kept trying out thought experiments in class about how we students would react if transported to certain time periods. Every time called on me, I pointed out I would be dead from a lack of insulin in a few days. He learned to stop calling on me.
|4.11.07 @ 1:18PM|#
SugarFree
I'm happy you live in a time where your disease can be treated.
Just as I'm happy I live in a time when my own physical
shortcomings can be treated or dealt with.
The question is, has the growth of the state created these
technological and social advancements, or has the growth of
humanity itself created them?
|4.11.07 @ 1:31PM|#
Albionite
I agree regulation is a shortcut.
The worst problem with it seems to be that, while it MAY be
justifiable for something like sewers, it becomes all too easy to
use the same shortcut for something that the majority objects to -
say, pornographic sculpture in your yard - but is not an actual
injury to their interests.
Sewage in your yard is a definite health hazard to your neighbors,
so the neighbors could sue you in a libertarian society if you
refused to take some measure to deal with it. The question then is,
so long as you are dealing with your sewage in a way that does not
have any risks to your neighbors, do they have the right to demand
that you do it their way?
Another problem is the "pre-existing condition". I ride horses. The
barn where I keep my horse used to be in a rural area, but it is
rapidly turning into subdivisions. People who move to the
subdivisions then complain about the smell of the horses and their
poop on the roads. These conditions existed when the newcomers
moved in; should they, now that they are the majority, have the
right to demand that the stable be removed/subjected to new
regulations?
|4.11.07 @ 1:46PM|#
Aresen
You have horses? Well done! I used to ride, and even enjoyed the
smell of a good stable. Not just the manure, but the scent of horse
sweat and straw and leather. It's been too long. If I could only
convince my better half of the value of the country!
Anyway, where was I? I had a point, I think.
SugarFree|4.11.07 @ 1:51PM|#
Albionite,
Like a Chinese restaurant menu, it's a little from Column A and a
little from Column B. Some of our progress is from a stable form of
government and some is from individualist achievement. The state
should be an honest actor in the support of individual achievement.
But too many people put the cart people the horse and worship the
state, either from an impulse to control or from a willful
blindness that the way things are is not the way things have to
be in order for anything to work.
I think people who believe in an all-encompassing view of society
(I'm not suggesting you are), where the definition of "civilized"
is the entire web of our society and nothing else, are
very dangerous to freedom. The idea that if you rock the boat at
all, then it must capsize is very insidious and is a problem of
both the left and the right. There a many people (a few on this
board) that think if you enjoy any part of the state (roads,
libraries, police for personal and property crimes) then you must
embrace it all (the War on Drugs, Social Security, insanely high
taxes.)
This is a bizarre notion to me, the idea that society is so
delicately balanced that if SWAT teams don't kill gradmas in the
middle of the night, then I don't get to have insulin.
|4.11.07 @ 2:03PM|#
SugarFree
Overall, well stated. But let me go into one example you noted:
libraries. As we all know, libraries are about to become extinct
thanks to technology. When will the state stop taxing us to support
them or the sadly sub-human people who have MA's in some worthless
field called "library science"?
The state, it seems to me, is always very late in addressing
problems, and even later in realising solutions. Illiteracy was a
problem in the USA for decades after our founding; then the state
finally addressed the issue with librarians. Google, et al., have
replaced librarians; the state will, I predict, address this issue
in 300 years.
|4.11.07 @ 2:12PM|#
Aresen
Seriously, horses? Fantastic! Call me nostalgic, but I'd rather
shovel a horse's shit than change the oil in a car.
Mike Laursen|4.11.07 @ 2:25PM|#
These conditions existed when the newcomers moved in; should
they, now that they are the majority, have the right to demand that
the stable be removed/subjected to new regulations?
Don't know if they should, but I'd bet a $1000 they will. In L.A.,
where I grew up, all it took was for the second wave of homeowners
to move into the relatively cheap subdivisions adjacent to the
pre-existing oil refineries.
SugarFree|4.11.07 @ 2:26PM|#
Albionite,
You couldn't possibly know, but my wife and I both have a Masters
in Library Science. We're not so bad once you get to know us.
Actually, if you've never interacted with a university librarian or
a public library bigwig then you've probably dealt with few people
with library science degrees. The people out on the desk are
usually divorced housewives or people who couldn't hack it as
school teachers.
I won't defend most public library systems (we both work at a
university) because they do waste tons of money occasionally, but
if you use a public library you can get a fantastic return on your
tax money, much more so than schools for kids I never plan to have.
But then, the public library only works because so few people use
it.
I'd probably pay more per year than I do in taxes for a private
library or just a straight rental store like home video, but the
public library is such a small fish in the overall tax scheme of
things I don't get too worked up about it. But don't get me started
on the fucking garbage men...
Mike Laursen|4.11.07 @ 2:29PM|#
As we all know, libraries are about to become extinct thanks
to technology.
Maybe a bad example. Around here, at least, the public libraries
are adapting quite well. Still lending books, plus videos and other
assorted media. Internet access, study areas, children's story
time, and generally taking on the role of community center.
|4.11.07 @ 2:30PM|#
Mike, et al.
I am beginning to appreciate this point. Libs emphasise
"neighbourhood associations" as an alternative to zoning. But yes,
what is to stop bastards (i.e., people who hate horses) from
surrounding me and then forcing me to clean out my stables? Or stop
me playing my music which I was playing quite peacefully before
they showed up?
Of course, the state is even worse at protecting me in these
circumstances, unless I have good connections.
|4.11.07 @ 2:34PM|#
Wow! I think I just got creamed by the library lobby.
In my defense, I do know a number of Masters and Mistresses in LS.
And I would submit that your defence--that libaries are becoming
community centers--is evidence that your field is no longer
necessary in the form it was originally conceived.
SugarFree|4.11.07 @ 2:49PM|#
Albionite,
I would like to gently suggest that you are wrong again. I finished
my Masters three years ago. We didn't talk about books at all, much
to my consternation. The degree is now about using information
technology. We are becoming the user interface side of computer
science. Illiteracy may be mostly dead, but computer illiteracy
gallops rampant across the land.
I think there is a legitimate debate to have in libertarian circles
about taxation and public libraries, but less and less of MLSs
suckle at the public teat. It's not like we are education majors or
something.
|4.11.07 @ 3:02PM|#
Albionite
Yeah, I got horses in the blood.
I own a trakhener* and also ride a friend's anglo-arab.
That's why you never see me posting here on Saturdays [unless the
weather is so bad that I can't leave the house.]
*Trakhener: Imagine a very fit 8 year old. Who weighs 1200 lbs. And
has ADD. And has been off his ritalin for 5 days. And has just
eaten 4 lbs of Easter candies.
Goldwater Conservative|4.11.07 @ 3:57PM|#
Why is that statists insist on bunk correlations. There is a
difference in 18th century knowledge and knowledge now. It's
interesting that they never use slavery when they are counting the
blessings of erstwhile government.
Hell, you can take a look at America during the New Deal and Great
Society and look what followed it.
Besides, I would think it was the fringe of the movement that would
argue that sanitation couldn't be a valid function of government as
long as the market isn't denied entry (private waste management,
bottled watter, that sort of thing)
|4.11.07 @ 4:29PM|#
Returning to romanticizing the past:
Libertarians seem just as prone to it as anyone else. We may resent
the growth of taxes and state control of the economy, but we tend
to forget that women had to get their husbands' signatures to have
a bank account, that blacks couldn't stay in most hotels, that
Chinese had to pay a tax just to come here, and that Americans and
Canadians could be thrown into concentration camps just for being
descended from Japanese.
This is not to say we shouldn't resist the growth of statism; I'm
just pointing out that there are things which have gotten better as
well.
|4.11.07 @ 5:14PM|#
Albionite-
I'm with you; in this part of the world, "Head Librarian" is
apparently shorthand for"Self-Aggrandizing Commie Pyramid
Architect."
|4.11.07 @ 6:01PM|#
"The Voluntary City" by Beito, Gordon, and Tabarrok gives a very good accounting of the various ways the private sector has and does provide infrastructure. The big lesson I came away with is that just because "I" can't imagine how something might be done on a large scale in modern times, that doesn't mean that a non-coercive, free market solution doesn't exist. Furthermore, I know government has a long history of pointing at progress and taking credit for it based on government regulations. On examination, progress from the time the regulations are implemented seldom exceeds or even matches progress prior to implementation.
|4.11.07 @ 6:27PM|#
Now every time someone writes "libertarian" I see
"librarian".
I'm so turned on by that.
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245